(38) Jumbo Shrimp, Great Summer Reading, and other Oxymorons

The hammock swings gingerly in the breeze as the rays of sunshine pour through the woven ropes, casting a net of light onto the freshly, cut grass. I glance up at the sky, and the intense power of the sun causes my eyes to squint shut without my consent. I drag the bag of necessities next to me and lightly jump onto the towel I have carefully laid out, stretching my legs so that they are covered in light. I scowl at them distastefully, thinking about the wonder of how you can appear extremely tan in the shade and then when you allow your body to be fully exposed to the sun, you look as white as a beached killer whale. My almost transparent skin could possibly blind any unfortunate passerby who happens to walk down the street. To hide my horror I tap my sunglasses down onto my freckled nose, suddenly seeing delicious brown skin once again.

From the bag next to me, I drag out my choice in educational reading: “People”, “CosmoGirl”, “Seventeen”, and “National Geographic”?? Oh yeah, I remind myself with relief, ideas from tribal body piercing. I quickly run through the traditional list. Designer sunglasses-seven dollars at TJ Maxx….check. CD player with Legally Blonde soundtrack……check. Evian, towel, and chap stick check, check, check…. SPF 1 sacred tanning oil….check, and EZ blonde in a bottle, check. There’s not a cloud in the sky as I sigh with pleasure, a perfect day for tanning. I also remove my snack. I have appropriated nearly half a pound of fresh jumbo shrimp and lemon slices from an appetizer tray my mother has ordered for a tennis team-lunch about to take place at the house. As my little battery-operated fan blows a gentle breeze towards my face, I grab the stack of postcards next to me and pop a shrimp into my mouth savoring the tartness of the lemon. Flipping through the postcards I glance at their breathtaking scenes from last year’s trip to Nantucket; beaches, lighthouses, and more beaches. Ripping the cap off of a JellyRoll pen found at the bottom of my bag, I begin to write acquaintances from school, small notes of summer salutations. “Here as I lie amongst the warm rich sand and bobbing waves, I remember with fondness the fun we had in Algebra.” I continue to scribble furiously, and just as I am about to heart-dot the “i” in Kisses, Daria, I hear the thud of something adding weight to the hammock. I glance up to find my mother pointing to a stack of books and looking disdainfully at my baggy of stolen-shrimp. Pulling off my headphones I squint at her in puzzlement.

“Well, you look like you’re all set for a nice afternoon in the sun! So I thought you’d like me to pick up your summer reading. You’ve got to start sooner or later.” I pick up the first novel equivalent to the size of a dictionary. My eyes bulge with terror, sweat pours down my back, the hairs on my arms stand on end, and suddenly the sun is zipped into a mass of clouds causing my whole world to consist of darkness. I tear off my shades, and jerk my wrist towards my naked eye. I nearly faint with shock, AUGUST FIFTH!! Where has the summer gone! School starts the TWENTY-FIFTH! As my mom cheerfully returns to the living room, I sit dumbfounded in front of what must be over five hundred pages of literature. How on EARTH am I going to pull this off!

I pick up the book with contempt as I begin the literary journey, similar to the Jihad. Seconds turn into minutes, minutes turn into hours and as I continue to read I even lose track of what tanning side I am on.

After two hours, I lean back with my eyes closed, thinking about the combination of useless knowledge and shellfish I just ingested and find myself even more disgusted. Pages of foul language, crude encounters with prostitutes, and detailed descriptions of disemboweled bodies fill my mind. As I glance down at the text, I am instantly brought back to past years of similar assigned reading. When I was in junior high school, we were required to read a book describing “the black experience” through one man’s eyes. Typical or a-typical, I still don’t know, we never discussed it, which would have been pointless anyway in a white community with a white teacher. Instead of being brought to an understanding of African American history and issues, we were exposed to a stereotypical portrayal of the dregs of society, living with drugs, gangs, death, and blatant and gratuitous sexuality.

In the name of science we were forced to read, for the sake of a quiz, a slim paperback dealing with adultery, under age drinking, and oh yeah, about two pages worth of rescuing an endangered amphibian. I can understand the importance of maintaining a scholastic focus when all there is to think about during the summer months is beach parties, boys, and bronzing, but do the books that are chosen for our benefit really have to be this coarse? And if these books are supposed to be truly instructive, why isn’t more time spent discussing the issues in the classroom?
I take a sip of my Evian, a little distraught. I can’t possibly believe that there aren’t more books out there sitting on shelves that can achieve the desired learning with an author’s use of more eloquent vocabulary and a gentler handling of sensitive issues. What is the point of reading these books anyway? For the majority of the teen population of the local schools, the answer would be to be able to do well on the fall quizzes.

Unfortunately, reading these books don’t always guarantee that. Unless teens procrastinate their reading until the late August weeks, notes are required to keep the ideas in these books fresh in their minds before they are tested on them. Furthermore, the questions contained in these quizzes often only ask names of characters and facts about the setting and plot instead of questioning what we actually learned from reading the novels, the principles taught, or the author’s intent. It seems that too often quizzes and the books that we read become policing tools instead of teaching tools. The board of education is able to remain grasping a firm hand on the direction of teen minds for the summer, but the small amounts of factual information and experiences found in these books are forgotten too easily within the first few months.

Who are the people who make the final judgments that these books are so edifying? And when these people are picked to decide which books we need to read during our summer vacation, shouldn’t we as teens at least know who they are and why they were chosen? Running into the house to clean up, I prepare myself with newfound determination to begin writing a letter to the board of education.